Dalyan – 19th December

It was all go on Tuesday 19th December and we were both excited for Josh and his girlfriend to arrive in Dalyan that afternoon.  Today was also Daisy’s 25th birthday with a party booked at Tapa from 2pm.
The cleaner was not at our apartment at 8.30am, as agreed, so we waited to see if she turned up. She was late as the office wasn’t open for her to collect the keys any earlier but no harm done. Captain Caveman and I decided we would go to a cafe or somewhere for a hot beverage, maybe some breakfast, before he went to Bridge Club. After walking round Dalyan to find nowhere open yet we bought 2 chocolate croissants for 37.90 lira (£1.02) from Migros and walked round the streets eating them.

When Captain Caveman left, I waited for Kaunos tea gardens to open and had a tea. I messaged Jamie to see if he fancied meeting up and I had a second breakfast with him, at Ela’s Kitchen. As tomorrow was weigh day, I tried to make as sensible a choice as I could. The beans on toast that I ordered was a very generous size and I was pleased id managed to resist Sev’s sausage.
By 11.30am I was on my way to my parents’ place as arranged so that I could go to Jiks with Dad, while Mom went for her hair cut. Captain Caveman would meet us at Jiks for lunch. Ma finished early and we all ate together; Dad a burger and the rest of us had pizza which was great – my diet was well and truly blown! While there, Jamie messaged to ask if I would be able to take 2 bed side lamps to Tapa for Janet. He was selling them for a friend, Janet, who was going to be at Daisy’s birthday party, where we were going to go for one, before Josh and Martha arrived. Of course I agreed and we carried them over to Tapa where the Dalyan gossip started that Jamie must have sold his house because he was getting rid of some lamps!

Daisy’s 25th birthday party at Tapa was busy with lots of friends. My parents had a cold but had managed to muddle through and I had a bit of a sore throat coming. We’d already said we weren’t staying long as we needed to get back to greet Josh and Martha who were on the plane. Captain Caveman left first with instructions to ring me when he knew that Josh was in the taxi. He forgot, so when I got back home our guests were already there!
It was great to see Josh again after a year and it was impressive to see he’d really done well for himself. Captain Caveman and I liked Martha straight away as she was really lovely – it takes a special kind of person to agree to a week in Dalyan with us lot (as I’m sure you can imagine). I just hoped we wouldn’t be spoiling her Christmas holiday and that she could get through the Dalyan shenanigans. We decided to ease Martha in gently with a trip to the Waterfall so we could have a drink together and get to know each other a bit better. She had a good sense of humour and it was obvious we were going to have a great week. Jamie popped in for one with Norman and Edna and he wasn’t too pleased that Dalyan Dwellers thought those  lamps were his – surely they knew he had better taste in décor! We asked my parents, who had also left Tapa when I did, if they wanted to join us to meet Martha and welcome Josh back. Dad had already got bored at home waiting, so they had gone back to Tapa. The four of us decided to go to join them where we introduced Josh and Martha to everyone, some people Josh had already met. We had a couple of drinks and decided we were going to go for a meal as we were all peckish and I’d already booked Simple for the 6 of us. Daisy didn’t want us to leave and Josh, the not so devout vegan, managed to eat a slice of chocolate birthday cake as we were departing.

Simple was lovely, just the 6 of us indoors, with Onur the chef making us very fresh and tasty food. Josh and I had the vegan pumpkin soup, the others had the chicken soup – all were delicious. Martha and I had the pulled beef burger (with chips), Captain Caveman had a chicken quesadilla and the rest had the Asian noodles (meat for my parents, veggie for Josh). All the food was excellent although the noodles were on the spicy side.
Simple is not licenced for alcohol but we were able to get beer and wine from next door. The prices were reasonable to say it felt like a private dining experience. Unfortunately, my 2 breakfasts, a pizza lunch, a few wines and a loaded burger meant that I had completely gone over the top on the syns this week. We went back to Tapa to rejoin the birthday shenanigans which were now getting even more lively. It had been a great day and we had more excitement planned for tomorrow. Fat Club was going to be a bit more like a confessional for me tomorrow, having had 548 syns.